WWE Raw Recap February 29, 2016

Mr. McMahon might have considered The Undertaker to be his own personal "force of nature" against his son Shane at WrestleMania, but The Deadman follows no man.

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Raw Recap: February 29, 2016

S2016 episode WWE Raw Aired on February 29, 2016

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Is there no one Dean Ambrose won’t fight? One week after taking the beating from hell (and a No Holds Barred Street Fight against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania in the process), The Lunatic Fringe somehow managed to piece himself together and step to Triple H, laying down a challenge for The King of Kings’ WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Surprisingly, The Game didn’t turn him down then and there, though unsurprisingly, he repaid the insubordination by placing Ambrose into a one-on-one match with Alberto Del Rio — all but guaranteed to become a massacre with The League of Nations at ringside — while he contemplated his answer.

As you may remember, Shane McMahon returned last week to shake up the power structure of Monday Night Raw. Perhaps lost in the shuffle of his return, however, was the fact that Stephanie McMahon had just won the Vincent J. McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award. So Stephanie took the opportunity to deliver a belated acceptance speech one week after her initial remarks were interrupted … and she didn’t get far.

The boos of the WWE Universe where so resounding that Stephanie’s gratitude turned to gripes in all of five seconds. By the end, she had cursed the “wastes of life” in the WWE Universe, questioned the foundation of her brother’s claim to WWE, proclaimed herself “Queen” of WWE and promised Shane’s doom at WrestleMania. Hell of a speech.

If Mr. McMahon thought The Undertaker would show mercy as a blunt instrument to thwart Shane McMahon’s WrestleMania power grab, he was sorely mistaken. The Phenom made as much clear when he confronted The Chairman on Raw, one week after Mr. McMahon named him — out of nowhere — as the opponent Shane would need to defeat at WrestleMania to seize control of Raw.

In fact, right as Mr. McMahon was singing The Deadman’s praises, he snared The Chairman by the throat and served a not-so-gentle reminder that Shane-O-Mac’s blood will be on his father’s hands, not The Phenom’s. The proclamation clearly jarred Mr. McMahon, but he recovered quickly enough to promise that, once The Deadman’s work was complete, Shane’s inheritance would be bestowed on Stephanie and The Boy Wonder would be effectively renounced as the family heir.

Dean Ambrose got what he want, and he will pay dearly for it: First, The Lunatic Fringe’s self-proclaimed indestructability was put to the test by Alberto Del Rio, and later Triple H, in a match that was really little more than a beatdown in waiting. True to form, Ambrose refused to stay down, and he built up enough of a head of steam that Triple H had to arrive and call The League of Nations into action before joining in on the assault himself.

The end result of this beating wasn’t a shattered nose like what happened to Roman Reigns, but something potentially worse: The Game accepted Ambrose’s challenge. And after Ambrose’s nonchalant response of “thanks,” The King of Kings went to work again, beating him to a pulp atop the commentary table. Clearly, the beatings will continue until morality ceases to exist.